


Heritage

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Child Loss, F/M, Pillow Talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 09:32:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14829776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: Tomorrow will be one day closer to finding William.  Scully and Mulder talk after the events of "Ghouli".





	Heritage

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: post-11.05 "Ghouli"  
> Author's Note: For perplexistan.  
> Disclaimer: _The X-Files_ and all related characters are the property of Chris Carter, 1013 Productions, and Fox Studios. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

"He really is something," Mulder says in that mumbly way he has. It's something about being in bed together that makes his voice low and scratchy, his plosives more prominent. It's been that way always, between thin motel sheets and crisp Egyptian cotton, on sofa beds, in sleeping bags, and stretched out across a California king. He lies behind her and pulls her close with his cheek pressed against her jaw, just like always, and they confess to each other, as if not looking makes them safer. Maybe this time, they could absolve themselves of their sins.

"Who?" Scully asks, as if she doesn't know. As if she doesn't always know, when she meets his conversational gambits with an opening of her own. Their communication is an endless game of chess and they'd memorized each other's moves by the end of the first month. Still, they go through the motions, and the ritual is comforting and clarifying, as automatic as crossing herself in church. 

"William," he says, and she remembers the few days they spent together as a family, before he had to leave. He said their son's name the same way then. "Jackson," he corrects himself.

"Jackson Van De Kamp," she says softly. 

"Our son, by any other name," he says, and it's nonsense, but it resonates in her. They changed his name, but she still saw the stamp of herself in his face.

"Is he a shapeshifter?" she asks, thinking out loud. "But the footage from the gas station showed him, not his disguise."

"I think he pushes people," he says, and she hears the nuance in the word. "The girls. The DoD agents. You. Us. I think he makes people see what he wants them to see." 

"You think he has brain cancer?" Her voice rises; she can't help it. She wants to turn to face him, but she doesn't want to see that kind of confirmation in his eyes.

"No, I think it's a side effect of his altered DNA," Mulder says. "Your altered DNA."

"Our altered DNA," she murmurs. "Between my abduction and the chip in my neck and your alien irradiation and putting everything in your mouth over the years, neither of us is blameless."

"Our altered DNA," he agrees, maybe just to pacify her. "Come on, Scully. You always knew any kid of ours would be special."

"Every parent wants to believe their child is special," she says, resettling her head on her folded hands. His hand is pressed between hers. She imagines, for an instant, what it would feel like to both be wearing rings, to feel the reluctant slide of the surfaces against each other as their fingers move. 

"Ours is," Mulder says with certainty. 

"Yeah, well, he gets the psychic abilities from your side of the family," she says. "There's nothing like that on the Scully side." She pauses and sighs. "Melissa might have disagreed."

"I think she would have," Mulder says. 

"Our son is a fugitive," Scully says. "Possibly a criminal."

"He definitely gets that from my side of the family," Mulder teases. 

"He could have killed those girls," she muses. "He did kill the agents from the DoD, or caused them to kill each other."

"The girls were a mistake," Mulder tells her. "I think he realized that and regretted it, but he was testing his powers. The agents were self-defense. Plus, they'd just killed his parents."

"That would definitely traumatize a child," Scully says, resisting the urge to correct his statement to "adoptive parents". She thinks about the Van De Kamps: did they know how special their son was? Did they realize, when they brought him home, what a miracle they were receiving into their life? Was her son this close to her his whole life and she didn't somehow know? She doesn't entirely believe in psychic powers, but something deep in her wants to think she would have sensed his presence, that she would have known him if they'd met. She had thought he was farther away, somewhere across the country. Not in Virginia. Not within reach. 

"Years ago, I told you never to give up on a miracle," Mulder said into her hair. "He's a miracle, Scully, in so many ways."

"Is he all that you hoped for?" she asks. She doesn't know why there are tears prickling in her eyes. She has cried over the loss of her son so many times. Maybe she's never cried over Mulder's loss of their son. She needs to know that William would have been enough for him without powers, without special attention from the shadows that have pursued them.

"All I hoped for was a happy, healthy baby," Mulder tells her. "And we got that. Those few days we had together when he was born, Scully, when we were a family - it was all that kept me going after I left. It's the only thing that gave me hope when you left. Nothing means more to me than that." 

"He pushed us," she says. 

"He did," Mulder says, and she can hear the absurd pride in his voice. She feels it too. At least her son is not defenseless in the strange dark world he inhabits. "You can't ground him for that, Scully."

"Well, not now," she says. "But when he gets home, definitely."

Mulder laughs softly. "He's resourceful. Sounds like your son. At least we know he can defend himself, keep himself safe."

"The pickup artist," she says. "That sounds like he's your son."

"They say the truth will out," he says. "Do you think he's going to start eating tofutti rice dreamsicles and questioning everyone else's beliefs?"

"I think he's going to start frequenting coffee shops and living some kind of double life," Scully says. "He can change his face and his name."

"Fox is absurd and Mulder looks dumb on the cup," Mulder says with a tinge of defensiveness. "I'm protecting my personal information. Bob's easier."

"I'm sure Big Brother doesn't care about your coffee order," Scully says. "Or the Smoking Man or Professor They or whoever's running the surveillance state this week."

"Do you think there's an FBI agent watching us from our computers?" Mulder asks. 

"Is that the new internet thing?" She snuggles closer to him. "I mean, these days, that's what I assume when I don't understand what you're talking about it."

"Have it your way, Scully," he says. "One of these days there's going to be a meme-based case and I'm going to solve it."

"If you say so," she says.

"You're going to be impressed," he insists.

They lie in silence for a long moment. She soaks up the warmth of his body. The new softness of his belly is comforting to her. They're getting older together. She's softer too in some places, and leaner in others. The thing that matters is that she isn't alone. His arm tightens gently around her. 

"What if we don't find him?" she asks.

"We'll find him," Mulder assures her. "Or he'll find us."

"He wants to know us better," she says quietly. 

"We'll make that happen," Mulder says. "Or he will. He knows about us now, Scully. There's no way he won't come back to find us."

"If he's our son," she says slowly, "he'll never give up, even when the world seems to stand against him."

"He's out there," Mulder says. "Imagine what he can accomplish. Our son lived, despite everything that was done to us. Not only that, he thrived. No one can take that from us."

"He's incredible," she says. 

"He's a miracle," Mulder says, and she tears up again. She turns in his arms to face him, her eyes searching his. He smiles at her. His own eyes look bright in the low light that filters in through the window. 

"You told me never to give up," she says, "but how many miracles do we get, Mulder?"

"At least one more," he says, and kisses her. "When our miracle finds his way home."

She wants so badly to believe that grace is rationed out that way. She wraps herself up in Mulder - another miracle, however improbable - and lets the world hold their son in its arms. One more impossible mystery keeping to the shadowed places; one more half-wild boy in the deep woods. Whoever their son chooses to be, he is a worthy legacy and a farflung hope, and she yearns for him the way Mulder yearned for the truth in their first years together. 

Find us, she thinks, wondering how the connection between them works, when you're ready. Perhaps she imagines the tiny spark of recognition, like the shock of a fish suddenly live on the line, but it's enough. She's survived on less, some years. 

Mulder shifts beside her and she lets herself be happy in this moment, in his arms, in a year she never imagined she'd see. She has suffered, but she is blessed. Forty years in the wilderness, give or take, has taught her to survive. They have put down roots in this place at last. They will remake their home into a place that might shelter their son, who belongs with them, whatever abilities he may possess.

The future seems welcoming for the first time in longer than she can remember. She kisses Mulder's hand and he murmurs in his sleep, a lullaby that never fails to soothe her. She closes her eyes and lets herself relax, in their bed, in their home, in their hard-won and carefully crafted life. Tomorrow will be one day closer to finding William. She’ll treasure every minute of it.


End file.
